From where we sit today in the 21st century, 1977 seems like another world, another lifetime ago.The Whitlam Experiment was over and Australia appeared to be heading back to the conservative dark ages. The most popular shows on TV were Number 96 and The Box. On Sunday nights, Countdown celebrated the Australians stars of the era: LRB, Sherbet, JPY and Dragon.
It was into this space that a young artist by the name of Richard Clapton dropped Goodbye Tiger, this most enigmatic and mysterious of Australian Rock Classics - an album suffused with bitterness and sadness, with loss and resignation, with righteous anger and acerbic disdain.
Richard Clapton was always an outsider - a young man keen to reject almost everything about his family, his upbringing and his culture. With his curtain of black hair and his dark, introspective songs, Clapton was in so many ways out of step with his time and his place, travelling a very different path to his contemporaries.
Yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, his music found its audience almost instantly. Whatever Australia was in those days - a sunburnt country of proud sportsmen, suburban values and narrow thinking - Richard wasn't buying it. Never comfortable in his country of birth nor, indeed, in his own skin, he turned his back on the parochial materialism of his homeland and wandered the world in search of a place that felt like home.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who knew the artist as a young man that he found that place in Northern Europe - and in particular the edgy, nerve-damaged mean streets of West Berlin. Richard returned to Australia with a brace of incredible songs and gathered a band with the intelligence and technical ability to realise them. In a state of siege with both his producer - Richard Batchens and his record company, Richard Clapton went into the Festival Studios in Ultimo and created Goodbye Tiger.
Goodbye Tiger was a kiss-off letter to Australia and everyone that lived there. And even now, more than 30 years later, it remains strikingly relevant and brutally on-target. Listening to the album today with fresh ears, I'm struck by it's unique perspective. Although the songs were written by a young man in the prime of what was already a successful career, it's suffused with a sad, reflective disappointment and an appreciation of some of life's inevitable certainties: hopes fade; dreams shatter. The past is another country and you can never go back. The entire album is a meditation on the very nature of reminiscence and regret.
It's a poignant and expertly crafted album from a man jaggedly out of step with his time and place, unsure how he got there and even less certain of his desire to remain. Drunk., alienated and angry, the artist stands apart from his own life and examines it with bitter clarity.
If you're reading these liner notes you've almost certainly had the good taste to purchase the album, and you'd be entitled to form your own interpretations of the songs. Suffice to say that of the eight songs here - four per side, as one did in those days I'd suggest that at least five are stone-cold classics. From the ironically upbeat opening salvo of "Lucky Country" to the strangely peaceful melancholia of closing track "Wintertime in Amsterdam", this is an album of untold riches.
"Deep Water" was the "hit" from the album - he even got to perform it on Countdown - and it still sounds fantastic with it's sparring themes of faded glory and drunken alienation. But for this writer, at least, it's the title track that leaps off the disc. "Goodbye Tiger" - written in a moment of desolate, hung-over reflection after fleeing Australia spontaneously is a deep musing on all that was and never will be again. A fond but unsentimental farewell. And one of the greatest Australian songs ever written or committed to tape.
So, music lovers, it is indeed a very long time since 1977. For all of us who were there all those years ago, it's been a long strange trip. I first met Richard Clapton the very month he released this album, and we've been friends ever since. Goodbye Tiger stands as a shining example of all that great songwriting can be and should be: it's personal, it's universal, it moves you and it makes you think. It hasn't aged one bit, unlike the rest of us. So this note's for you, Richard, with all my love. Never say Goodbye to a friend.
As the piano kicked in on “Something New” at the same time as one of the most distinctive voices in rock, Traffic were back in the American album chart on September 28, 1974 with When The Eagle Flies.
With Steve Winwood’s vocals and keyboards augmented by the work of Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood, and now Rosko Gee (plus the uncredited Rebop Kwaku Baah), they would once again strike gold in the States — but this would be their last chart showing with a new studio record for very nearly 20 years.
This ninth album by the British rock pacemakers gathered half a dozen new compositions by Winwood and Capaldi, and another, the equally impressive “Dream Gerrard,” that Steve wrote with inimitable performer-humorist Vivian Stanshall, late of the Bonzo Dog Band. It arrived just over a year and a half after the band’s 1973 entry Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory, after which they had released the On The Road memento of their concert in Germany that year.
Whereas Traffic’s recent studio endeavors had been produced by Winwood, When The Eagle Flies was overseen, like the live disc, by their Island label boss and confidant, Chris Blackwell. There was a subtle update to their sound, too, with the use of Moog and Mellotron keyboards, and an ever greater advance into a sophisticated jazz-rock style. But, with their status as FM album rock radio staples intact, there was no sign of any reduction in their American popularity.
While the band’s British audience showed less enthusiasm for the new album, granting it only a fleeting Top 40 place, Eagle entered the US chart at No.52 and became the group’s fourth Top 10 LP in a row there. Billboard called the album “a superb return.”
It reached No.9 in a 27-week run, going gold by November, but after a promotional tour in the US in the autumn, Traffic called it a day. They were commemorated by two compilations in 1975 but the name was not revived by Winwood and Capaldi until 1994’s Far From Home.
Encouraged by the creative and commercial success of 1971's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Traffic gleefully expanded upon its increasingly eclectic style with Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory, released in the early days of '73.
Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood remained, as ever, the core of the band; for these ses- sions, they were augmented by an American rhythm section, Roger Hawkins (drums) and David Hood (bass). Ghanian percussionist Reebop Kwaku-Bah, who'd been added for the live Welcome to the Canteen and Low Spark, remained in the ranks.
In '72, while Winwood recuperated from a bout with peritonitis, Capaldi flew to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record his solo album Oh How We Danced. Hawkins and Hood so impressed him during these sessions, Capaldi invited the Americans to come to England to be a part of the ever-evolving Traffic.
The Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory sessions took place at Strawberry Hills Studios in Jamaica, at the suggestion of Island Records chief (and longtime Winwood advisor) Chris Blackwell. A change of envi- ronment, it was felt, would nurture the creative ele- ment that had steadily brought Traffic to new heights since John Barleycorn Must Die had restored the band to the charts in 1970.
Right away, the new aggregation clicked, and the sessions brought five ambitious new songs out of Winwood, Capaldi and Wood. Musically, it melded R&B, pop and jazz in a stylistic gumbo Capaldi, who composed the lyrics, liked to call "Headless Horseman Music."
"Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory," the title song, allows Hawkins, Hood and Reebop to lay down a hypnotic groove while showcasing Winwood's multi-tracked electric guitars, which are joined halfway through by haunting flute from Wood.
Winwood's piano and organ set the stage for "Roll Right Stones," with some of the most plaintive singing of his career. Using the English megaliths called stand- ing stones as a starting-off point, he weaves a tale of mythology and doom recalling (in spirit) Traffic's 1970 version of the folk song "John Barleycorn." Wood added both flute and saxophone to this evocative 14- minute track, which climbs to a fever pitch before set- tling down again.
The fine ballad "Evening Blue" follows, with acoustic guitar from Winwood and sax from Wood. With a melancholy mood set by the opening line, "Sitting all alone by the fireside/Listen to the wind in the chimney top," it's perfect for Winwood's shades- of-blue vocal delivery.
"Tragic Magic," a Wood composition, is a bluesy instrumental full of fiery improvisation - Wood plays sax, with Winwood on piano, and as it builds toward its crescendo the song is punctuated by the Muscle Shoals horn section.
The album closes with "(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired," a pensive Capaldi lyric balancing sadness and optimism, leading into a lengthy jam allowing dynamic shading from each othe musicians.
Shoot Out At the Fantasy Factory rose to #6 in the American market in March 1973, earning the band a gold album.
The expanded, six-member Traffic toured through- out 1973, with many of the dates recorded for a potential live album. That live document of the tour, On The Road, would be released October 1973.
by Bill DeYoung
Tracks
1. Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory - 6:00
2. Roll Right Stones - 13:40
3. Evening Blue - 5:15
4. Tragic Magic - 6:39
5. (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired - 7:32
All compositions by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi except track #4 by Chris Wood
If there’s one song that best illustrates the talent and imagination of Steve Winwood, it’s the 11-minute title track of Traffic’s fifth album, a hypnotic jazz-rock masterpiece and a searing indictment of the music industry.
The song rose up from a lyric Jim Capaldi roused himself to write about the withering effects of the music business on the artist. To this Winwood introduced a musical backdrop that moved like shifting sand: neither solely rock, blues or jazz, but each and more besides, changing almost from one bar to the next.
Altogether, and elsewhere on this, Traffic’s most restless record, shades and styles got jumbled up in the same pot, shaken into new shapes, then broken down and started up again. “It kind of sums up Traffic in a way,” Capaldi said at the time. “The eclectic-ness – you can’t put your finger on it at all, yet you know it’s familiar.”
"Stevie Winwood and I both grew up in the midlands," Glenn Hughes told us, choosing Low Spark... as one of the records that changed his life. "I was mad about his earlier band the Spencer Davis Group, but Traffic really hooked me in. I adored his Hammond organ playing and the subtlety and drama of his voice. Not many people would know that Stevie was a huge influence upon me whilst I was in my mid-teens, and he continued to be so all though my twenties and early thirties."
Classic-Rock, 16 August 2021
Tracks
1. Hidden Treasure (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 4:12
2. The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 11:44
3. Light Up Or Leave Me Alone (Jim Capaldi) - 4:51
4. Rock 'n' Roll Stew (Jim Gordon, Rick Grech) - 4:27
5. Many A Mile To Freedom (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 7:18
6. Rainmaker (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 7:52
7. Rock 'n' Roll Stew (Parts 1,2) (Jim Gordon, Rick Grech) - 6:10
Bonus Track 7, single version
Traffic
*Steve Winwood - Guitar, Keyboards, Lead Vocals, Organ, Piano
*Chris Wood - Flute, Saxophone, Wind
*Jim Capaldi - Drums, Keyboards, Lead Vocals, Percussion
An album that became a Top 10 hit in the UK and a Top 20 hit in America cannot be described with that overused phrase “underrated”, but Traffic‘s self-titled album is a low-key addition to the classic records of 1968, a year when a sense of place distinguished the latest releases from the UK’s premier league bands.
After following the Beatles down the psychedelic rabbit hole in 1967, the Rolling Stones re-established their critical standing with Beggars Banquet, a record firmly rooted in Americana. The Kinks, banned from touring in America since 1965, were now the quintessentially English Village Green Preservation Society. While it cannot be seriously argued that The Beatles (White Album) had a sense of place, 19 of its 30 tracks had been written while they were on retreat in India. During the recording of Electric Ladyland, Jimi Hendrix could just as well have been beaming his guitar by satellite from outer space.
Traffic, meanwhile, came from Birmingham. For much of the 20th century, Birmingham was England’s unofficial second city. Its musical identity would come to be defined by heavy metal upon the surfacing of Black Sabbath. Beneath the radar, it had boasted of a music scene that had flourished in the wake of rock ‘n’ roll, reputedly with more working bands than in Liverpool. Still, by the middle of the 1960s, it had not established the national profile of Liverpool or London.
In 1968, there was a handful of noteworthy album releases by Birmingham-based groups, including the Moody Blues, the Move, and Traffic. All three shared some psychedelic common ground, as per fashion circa 1967, but only in so far as psychedelia equated to pushing boundaries, and the bands would sooner differentiate their musical identities than did the Merseybeat and London blues bands. So, while the Move took their cue from Sgt. Pepper‘s era art-pop and the Moody Blues worked orchestral textures into their proto-prog, Traffic, whose line-up emphasized keyboards and horns, with guitars often pushed back into a supporting role, gradually distinguished themselves as a premier jazz-rock band.
Traffic occupied a plum position on rock’s family tree. Steve Winwood had sung and played keyboards as a teen prodigy with the Spencer Davis Group (and he was only 19 years old when Traffic’s debut record was released in 1967). From that group, he brought along Jimmy Miller, a producer who had “got that art of being able to put music into words” and would start work that same year with the Rolling Stones, working with them through their much-vaunted golden period until 1973. Many Traffic members would feature on Electric Ladyland, and all four would play with Jimi Hendrix at one time or another. Winwood would go on to collaborate with Eric Clapton in Blind Faith, while Clapton would also cross paths with Dave Mason as part of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, a coterie of blue-eyed soul musicians.
Yet still, the competition Traffic faced was massive. In a music industry flush with the Beatles’ success, the array of new, established, and emerging talent in the UK at this time was dizzying. The year 1968 saw significant debut records in blues-rock (Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull), folk-rock (Fairport Convention, Pentangle), heavy rock (Deep Purple, the Jeff Beck Group), and progressive rock (Soft Machine, the Nice). What was more remarkable still was how so many of these acts could distinguish themselves.
What somewhat improbably helped the most talented artists to make their mark was that, amidst this wave of talent, there remained a vital element of purism, where only the most prominent names, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, were mixing genres freely. Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac was the most expressive British blues guitarist, but his band was still playing many Chicago blues covers and originals based on the rhythms and tonality of the blues. Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention would sing stirringly both on her original songs and on Fairport’s many Bob Dylan covers, but would also be influential on the group’s future decision to record only covers of British folk standards. Rod Stewart, too, was a fervent singer, but there were no gentle moments within the blues-derived proto-metal of the Jeff Beck Group.
Traffic were relatively less constrained. Winwood, Capaldi, and Wood liked to jam. With Wood’s distinctive array of horns and Capaldi’s exciting, meticulous drumming, this dimension formed their reputation as a 1970s jazz-rock band. They would later fit neatly in with the American jam-band aesthetic and were galvanized by the American “underground” scene of the time, where “all the groups just live for their music, and jam sessions are a pretty regular thing, with everyone getting up on stage to have a blow”. Dave Mason, however, wrote concise songs. Traffic, the album, is therefore split roughly between two distinct sides of their character, with Dave Mason’s songs typically delivered in a relaxed, amiable manner and the Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi collaborations reaching into more progressive territory. However, Winwood’s remarkable talent and soulfulness as a vocalist, organist, and guitar player unites all of the material.
Among the self-contained rock bands of the period, only the Jimi Hendrix Experience were as soulful as Traffic. Hendrix’s firsthand experience of playing with the Isley Brother aside, his pioneering work in psychedelic soul was aiming for the stars. In the Small Faces, Steve Marriott was another powerhouse vocalist, and the band had mod pedigree, but on Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, they would dilute their soulfulness with English whimsy. Traffic is shot through with down-to-earth soulfulness, with each song covering new ground and side one of the original vinyl record, especially being one winner after another. It’s a post-psychedelic record that retains the adventurous spirit of its predecessor, Mr Fantasy, while reconnecting with the roots of rock & roll. “Drugs show you the door, but they don’t open it, they don’t take you there. Music is getting honest, real, and natural,” said Winwood in an interview with his American counterpart, Al Kooper. Unlike many other groups of the time, Traffic did not see their record as a conceptual piece, with Winwood seeing it as “really ten songs rather than the concept of an album. They’re compositions. Or exercises, if you like.”
The Mason-written album opener, “You Can All Join In”, is an up-tempo rocker in which Winwood’s flowing call-and-response guitar licks meet Mason’s vocal melody. Contemporary music critics heard some country-rock flavor in the guitar, in the vein of Duane Allman, then a session guitar ace at Muscle Shoals studios, and later of the Allman Brothers Band.
“Pearly Queen”, written by Winwood and Capaldi, could be Traffic‘s most rock-orientated piece, but features a rousing, soul-inflected vocal melody, punctuated by Winwood’s stinging rhythm guitar, ala Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MGs, and vast, echoing production on the instrumental sections, giving the piece a strong Atlantic Records vibe.
“Don’t Be Sad” is a wistful, gentle ballad written by Mason, in which Mason and Winwood take turns to sing verses and harmonise on the bridge, further enriched by Mason’s harmonica and Chris Wood’s saxophone accompaniment. “Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring”, written by Winwood and Capaldi, is the funkiest cut on the record, driven by Winwood’s organ, which continuously pushes and pulls against Capaldi’s drums with an elastic groove in the manner of a soul-jazz organist like Jimmy Smith.
“Feelin’ Alright”, written by Mason, became the LP’s most well-known song, covered many times by soul and rock performers, and is bolstered by Winwood’s lolling piano, drawing on the New Orleans R&B of Allen Toussaint and the Meters, with some fantastic tenor sax soloing by Wood.
Starting side two of Traffic, “Vagabond Virgin” and “Roamin’ Thru’ the Gloamin’ with 40,000 Headmen” diverge from the overall character of the record, both tracks harkening back to the whimsical acid-folk of Traffic’s debut, although they are both worthy compositions. “Vagabond Virgin” is the album’s story song, telling the well-worn tale of a London groupie based on a Latin American rhythm and has Capaldi playing claves.
“Cryin’ to be Heard”, written by Mason, has powerful dynamic shifts and multi-part vocal harmonies, deepened by Winwood on organ and harpsichord, which brings a gospel flavor to the record. “No Time to Live”, written by Winwood and Capaldi, intensifies the melancholy of Cryin’ to be Heard, with Winwood’s vocals yearning and pleading over a desolate backdrop dominated by piano, spare ornamental saxophone, and Capaldi on the tympani. “Means to an End”, written by Winwood and Capaldi and featuring only the two performers, closes the Traffic in the most straightforward manner, with a rock ‘n’ roll rave-up. Capaldi plays drums on this track, while Winwood overdubs all the guitar and keyboard parts.
After the collapse of their record label, Capricorn, Marshall Tucker Band jumped to Warner Bros. The band's first album for their new home found them refining their blend of rock, country, R&B and jazz on a set of songs that mostly deal with life on the road ("Running Like the Wind") as well as the wives and girlfriends left behind ("Melody Ann," "My Best Friend"). In all, it’s probably Marshall Tucker Band's most bittersweet album, and it connected with fans, who made it a To 30 album.
Tracks
1. Running Like The Wind (Toy Caldwell) - 9:10
2. Last Of The Singing Cowboys (George McCorkle) - 4:16
The reissuing of a record is not just news for the record, it’s also a reissuing of that part of the life of the listener who knew the original. Thus it is with Richard Clapton, his debut album Prussian Blue and me. Clapton is about to send into the world anew the album Prussian Blue along with Goodbye Tiger and The Great Escape.
And in this rebirth, there rises memories like mist on the lake for myself. It was 1973 and I was a teenager just awakening to music. It was not quite like the scene in Almost Famous when William Miller’s sister Anita bequeaths her albums to him when she leaves home. But for a young Newcastle lad there were mysteries within the record sleeves, more mysteries in a gatefold, of course and a triple album? Good lord. And there was wonder.
It is here that I thank David Jones for its records section and those half bubble listening booths. Looking back I’m sure whoever was the buyer for the store had not really a clue about the music they were supplying. Bless them. Among the top 10 chartbusters in the racks was an array of music unknown to the radio stations nor I would offer a guess most of the public. How else to explain Tony Orlando and Dawn (Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree) next to Lynyrd Skynrd (Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd). I bought the latter. Or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon next to Frank Zappa’s Overnite Sensation? I bought the latter.
I’ll admit a cover could be enough to persuade a young McFadyen to part with his $5.95. I took Supertramp’s debut album Crime of the Century (admittedly in 1974) into the half bubble, purely on the ultra-cool cover art of a pair of hands gripping cell bars in space, listened to it, was in turn gripped by it and bought it instantly (I like to think I was the one of the first in the country to buy it.) I did the same with Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery, after having bought its predecessor Trilogy purely on its cover - and then spent countless hours trying to work out what it meant.
And so it was in 1973. The half bubble listening booth was the portal into the music of Richard Clapton. At a time when a driver in the mark of success of pop music in this country was to sound like an American, Clapton was a burst of fresh air. Here was an Australian singing in an unadorned Australian accent. He was singing of the heart and the street. He was singing from just 100 miles away and I could hear in his voice that he was singing to me. That is a mark of music transcending. I played the record to death.
Not quite. I still have it. And it has Clapton’s signature on it, too. (When I interviewed him, like the fan from decades earlier, I took the album with me.) People are now asking more than $1000 for an original pressing. Mine’s not for sale.
Prussian Blue is a time capsule. In 1973, the world was school, sport, family and friends. Life was generally smooth waters that was barely disturbed from a gust of the affairs of the wider world. To listen to the album these days takes me back to a place and time before I stepped out into that world.
Clapton’s voice then was more nasally and reedier than what it became down his career. It was the green reed bending with rhythm of the lyrics and melodies. And what he was singing turned my head, opened my mind to the possibilities of art. On the title track Clapton sings that he feels ‘like I’m in a Bunuel movie, right here at home/Surreal as Ornette Coleman’s saxophone/Playing on my broken gramophone/Oh baby, don’t you leave me here alone’.
Critics praised the album, which contained songs written while he was travelling in Europe. Due to grass-roots support, Prussian Blue sold steadily and four years later it was still selling 200-500 copies per week. The album has long been out of print with original copies of the first pressing on vinyl selling in the secondary market for a small fortune.
Memphis, despite it's authentic blues heritage, gave birth to a number of great rock acts that are still remembered with great affection, despite the fact that they may not have topped the national or, indeed, international charts. Chief amongst them were Target and Creed. Two bands that gave it their all, recording for major labels and making a splash that still shake the foundations to this day. For Creed the road to recognition was, like most acts of the era, strewn with disappointment, and difficulties that ultimately brought the band to it's knees, despite valiant attempts to overcome the obstacles. Signed to the prestigious Elektra/Asylum label () - home of the Eagles the band s initial prospects looked bright but progress would soon grind to a halt when they were paired with a country-pop producer who toned down the band's hard rock edge, looking to tame their sound and position them closer to the AOR style popular at the time. But the album didn't neuter their style completely, and leaves us in no doubt about the band's hard rock heart. It was a tough, lean and mean sound, sitting somewhere between the Southern rock style of Molly Hatchet and the raw punch of late '70s hard rock acts such as Aerosmith.
Tracks
1. Keep On Rockin' (Hal Butler, Luther Maben) - 3:21
2. Tied Down (Luther Maben, Steve Ingle, Tom Likes) - 3:25
3. Firecracker (Steve Ingle) - 4:01
4. You Never See It That Way (Hal Butler, Luther Maben) - 3:20
5. We're Gonna Make It (Hal Butler, Luther Maben) - 3:46
6. Just Can't Stop (Steve Ingle, Chip Thomas) - 4:05
7. Too Proud To Cry (Hal Butler, Luther Maben) - 3:15
8. Can't Find Love (Hal Butler) - 4:04
9. Time And Time Again (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 6:49
10.You Never See It That Way (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 3:41
11.We Need Ya (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 3:31
12.Crazy Woman (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 3:27
13.Can't Find Love (Hal Butler) - 3:52
14.Time And Time Again (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 8:25
15.Livin' In Dreams (Hal Butler, Steve Ingle, Luther Maben) - 2:38
Michael William Deasy (born February 4, 1941) is an American rock and jazz guitarist. As a session musician -member of The Wrecking Crew-, he played on numerous hit singles and albums recorded in Los Angeles in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Mike Deasy looks plenty country on the cover of this Capitol Records set -- but he comes across in a way that's more rock overall -- yet still touched with plenty of the southern roots that were showing up in the hipper currents of the American underground at the time! You might think of this record as being in that great late Byrds/early Eagles moment when an artist could freely mix together elements of Los Angeles and Nashville, but without coming across like some sort of commercial crook or pretender -- and Deasy is definitely his own man in the setting -- handling plenty of guitars, mandolin, banjo, and other stringed instruments alongside his vocals -- but also getting some warm west coast backing in the process. Titles include "Beauty", "If You Pick Her Too Hard", "The Peace Song", "Flutterby", "Letters To My Head", and "Little Water".
The MOB was the first band in Chicago to have a full horn section. Prior to The MOB (early-to-mid ’60’s), Gary Beisbier and Jimmy Holvay had horns in all of their line-ups. “Beatle Time” was recorded in December of 1963 and charted on WLS. Gary and Jimmy recorded as a group called The Livers, previously The Chicagoans. The song carries the melody with a horn section.
In June of 1966, The MOB was playing at a club in Schiller Park on River Road called the Wine and Roses. Coming to see The MOB were every rock band musician in town including The Missing Links, The Exceptions and Carl Bonafede. The MOB’s very first release [”Wait (Please Don't Walk Away)” b/w “Mystery Man”] was on Cameo / Parkway Records in May of 1966. “Kind Of A Drag” by The Buckinghams was released in 1967, later Blood Sweat & Tears, CTA, the Ides Of March and Chase all featured horns.
It was said in Danny Seraphines’ book, that the MOB inspired Danny, Terry and Wally to add horns to their group, which was originally called The Missing Links, which then became The Big Thing (now known as Chicago). In March of 1966, Jimmy Holvay was asked to write and produce a two sides for The Missing Links. It was a single called “Makin’ Up And Breakin’ Up” b/w “You Hypnotize Me” on Ivanhoe Records, when they were a four piece band, prior to them adding a horn section and re-forming as The Big Thing.
The Buckinghams also recorded their version of “Makin’ Up And Breakin’ Up” for their first USA LP. It was the producers (Dan Belloc and Carl Bonafede) who added horns to The Buckinghams tracks. The Buckinghams did not have horns in their band.
n early 1967, manager Joe DeFrancesco (in his quest to secure The MOB a recording contract with a major label) came up with a strategy. He directed The MOB to record at a top studio in New York City. The studio was A & R Recording, and the engineer was Brooks Arthur. The MOB recorded: "Disappear", "Blowin' My Mind", "I Wish You'd Leave Me Alone" and "Everybody's Got To Have Somebody", a newer version than the one recorded at Capitol Records' Studio B in Hollywood.
While in New York, Joe had a marketing brainstorm. A few months previously, Joe had seen a Las Vegas act, The Kirby Stone 4, perform at the Scotch Mist on Chicago's Rush Street. He befriended one of its members, Larry Foster, who was a celebrity voice impersonator.
While Joe was sitting in A & R Recoding's control room and mixing the tracks, he came up with an ingenious marketing plan of how he would launch the next super group to the world. He contacted Larry Foster, with whom he created a radio spot campaign titled "WHO IS THIS MOB?!" The twist was not only that these mobsters weren't gangsters but also that "they were clean". They were a musical group.
The mobsters and Joe secured a major record deal with Mercury. The single chosen to be released in 1968 was "Disappear" (Holvay/Beisbier) b/w "I Wish You'd Leave Me Alone" (Holvay/Beisbier). The February 14th holiday was also known in Chicago for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which occurred in the 1920's. It was decided to purchase numerous ads (with the royalties from The Buckingham's hits) on the local Top 40 power house radio station WCFL, which ran the radio spots for weeks; all building up to the release of Mercury Records #72791 1-40785 and 1-40786 Bag-O-Tunes (BMI).
There were five radio spots Foster recorded: James Cagney, Walter Winchell, Humphrey Bogart, Al Capone and Edward G. Robinson. Each radio spot did not include any clip from The MOB’s single but instead teased that “they were clean”.
The Mob
Tracks
1. Maybe I'll Find A Way - 2:44
2. Once A Man, Twice A Child - 4:11
3. (I’d Like To See) More Of You - 3:37
4. Lost - 3:57
5. Give It To Me - 3:04
6. For A Little While - 4:03
7. Goodtime Baby - 2:20
8. I Dig Everything About You - 2:34
9. Love Has Got A Hold On Me - 2:54
10.Back On The Road Again - 3:19
11.Savin' My Lovin' For You - 3:43
12.Medley: Everyday People (Sylvester Stewart) / Love Power (Teddy Vann) - 4:26
13.Make Me Yours - 3:00
14.All I Need - 2:46
15.I Feel The Earth Move (Carol King) - 2:52
16.Money (That's What I Want) (Berry Gordy, Janie Bradford) - 2:47
17.Where You Lead (Carole King, Toni Stern) - 2:22
18.Two And Two Together - 2:52
19.Uh-Uh-Uh-Uh-Uh-Uh - 2:52
All compositions by Gary Beisbier, James Holvay except where stated
